1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a vehicle control system designed to stop and restart an engine automatically which is mounted in an automotive vehicle equipped with an automatic transmission, and more particularly, to such a vehicle control system designed to minimize or absorb acceleration shock occurring upon start of the vehicle.
2. Background Art
There are some of the above type of vehicle control systems which are designed to suppress an acceleration shock arising from transmission of engine torque to an axle of the vehicle when the engine is restarted with the automatic transmission placed in the drive (D) range. For example, Japanese Patent First Publication No. 2001-55943 discloses such a vehicle control system which measures the degree of acceleration shock when the vehicle has been started and, when the measured acceleration shock is determined to be greater in magnitude than a given allowable acceleration shock, decreases the quantity of fuel to be injected into the engine to reduce the engine torque.
The decrease in quantity of fuel to be injected into the engine, however, may result in a deterioration in startability of the engine. There are, therefore, some limits to the decrease in quantity of fuel to be sprayed into the engine, which may be insufficient to suppress or absorb the acceleration shock.